The Queue: Patches always drop when you're sleepy

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today.

So yeah, I was hoping to go to bed when patch 5.4 news dropped and I ended up being awake for hours working on posts about it. I may be ludicrously groggy right now. Anyway, best news of patch 5.4 is Titan's Grip for polearms wooo! There's other stuff ... proving grounds, flex raiding, virtual realms, something in Orgrimmar ... but all of that pales compared to the majesty of TG with polearms. Many warriors will now twirl our way to greatness.

Since none of you knew that 5.4 would drop on the PTR when you were commenting in yesterday's Queue, most of your questions won't be about it. That's okay, it happens. As a result, we're lucky that folks on Twitter never sleep.

@AlternativeChat asks on Twitter:
Chances of mail across Virtual Servers? So you can finally send Heirlooms?

It looks pretty good, considering you can join a guild across them, use a shared AH across them, and do dungeons and raids (and no word of limits on that) across them. I would be very surprised if you couldn't mail across them. We'll see, though. The patch notes don't say yet.

@EmberDione asks on Twitter:
What's going on with names on this virtual server thing? Do we have any idea?

From the patch notes: Players belonging to the same Virtual Realm will have a (#) symbol next to their name. I assume this means that if my warlock Pyrrhus and someone else's mage named Pyrrhus are on different servers in the same virtual realm, he'll be Pyrrhus# to me, and I'll be Pyrrhus# to him. Perhaps our realm names will be in there as well, like in a dungeon or raid finder group.

Puntable1 asks:
With raid fights becoming more and more complex, what do you think of allowing the raid leader to direct like a coach from the sidelines. Add an extra spot to the raid, and he could be there in "ghost form" and move around, use raid markers, chat, etc, but not use abilities or take damage.

Honestly I think it is unlikely, it breaks immersion and kind of reduces the 'field general' feeling of raid leadership. It seems to me that raids have responded to the increased complexity of raid fights by spreading the raid leadership about -- in my experience, there has been a raid leader and up to three or more helpers who mark, call out specific boss abilities, tell the raid when to use cooldowns, etc etc. I don't see them divorcing raid leadership from raiders.

@Bulidar asks on Twitter:
What are the Horde doing in that mining pit in the Vale of the Eternal Blossoms?

They are digging it up looking for anything that Garrosh and his Horde can use as a weapon, and if you run the Dark Heart of Pandaria you find out exactly what he found. It's not good for anybody who isn't him, let me assure you. It's probably not even good for him.

@RetroDragon asks on Twitter:
Clog Den, a refugee from Kun-Lai at Two Moons, has a bear companion. With no bears in Pandaria, where did the bear come from?

A wizard did it.

@nuggsftw asks on Twitter:
Where do you think the raid portal will be for t16 raid?

Based on the boss list for the raid, I suspect it may actually be in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, perhaps in the pit the Horde have dug, because there's clearly some consequences to that action.

@Mementh asks on Twitter:
Do you think virtual servers will fix the low pop realms and can people handle it?

Fix it? No, but it may ameliorate the situation. It'll be hard to really test it on the PTR, so it'll be tested most thoroughly by going live and it'll be during that first month or so of the patch that we'll see how well lower and higher pop realms are joined in the virtual realms. If done well, it could definitely ease the pain for players on extremely empty realms.

fbxxkl asks:
Whats the point of Isle of Giants? Are there dailies? Special mobs (besides oondasta)? Can anyone give me a link where Isle of Giants gets a roundup/review?

You can farm up dinosaur bones -- if you get 9999 of them you can turn them in for this sweet mount. Our own Anne Stickney answered your question in this post.

And that's the lot. Thanks for reading! I go sleep now, I hope. Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em! Tags: featured, guide, qa, question-and-answer, wow-answers, wow-daily-answers, wow-daily-questions, wow-guide, wow-player-questions, wow-q-and-a, wow-questions

Filed under: The Queue

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Encrypted Text: We'll always be the bad guys

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

I remember the first time I ran into a warlock in vanilla WoW. We were both around level 40, and I met him in an Uldaman run. I didn't even know the class existed until he responded to my advertisement in trade chat. During the dungeon, he was constantly Fearing mobs into other groups, accidentally tab-targeting and tossing DoTs on patrols, and letting his pet steal aggro from the tank. My first impression of warlocks was a negative one, and it took a long time for that prejudice to subside.

Most players' first experience with a rogue will be on the receiving end of our daggers. Whether it's in a battleground or in the open world of a PvP server, rogues are killing thousands of players per hour. If a rogue gets the opener on an unsuspecting player, it's not a pretty sight. The target will be ambushed from nowhere, stunned, slowed, interrupted, poisoned, and bled to death. Being killed by a rogue isn't a fun experience. You're hit with the shock of surprise, denied control of your character, and incredibly restricted. It's easy to see how a player's first experience with a rogue could leave a bad taste in their mouth.

Stealth is a one-edged sword

If a rogue is able to approach a target undetected and land the opener, their chances of victory are greatly increased. Surprise allows rogues to uneven the odds quickly, and our openers have been clearly demonstrated to be our most powerful individual abilities. Stealth is always beneficial for rogues, and so it has become a crucial part of our PvP strategy. Opening salvos are precisely micromanaged to ensure we're dealing maximum damage immediately.

I would love to see PvP statistics from when rogues get the opener versus when they're caught out of Stealth. If I had to guess, I would say our chances of winning a fight double when we're able to get the opener. Stealth is great for rogues.

It's not a good surprise (for them)

Stealth is not great for our targets. Remember, the majority of content in WoW is focused around scripted combat against simple and predictable enemies. Players can see mobs coming from a mile away, and can even see 90% (or more) of enemy players at a distance as well. WoW, as a game, doesn't teach players to be afraid of the dark -- that's learned from rogues.

The first time that a player is hit with a Cheap Shot to Kidney Shot combo, they have no idea what's going on. They've lost control of their character, their fight/flight reaction is kicking in, and they're not properly equipped to handle what's happening. After a bit of flailing, their corpse is on the ground and the rogue has already disappeared.

Is there a counter to being opened on by a rogue? Absolutely. Players from every class are able to go toe-to-toe with rogues when played properly, regardless of the opener. Focused PvP players have been attacked by rogues hundreds of time, and they know not to panic. They keep their cool and already have a plan of action for after Garrote or Cheap Shot wears off.

Rogues are a strong class, but we're nowhere near the stunlock masters of vanilla. Giving every player a base level of resilience for free has only hurt our opener's effectiveness, since it tips the scales slightly less in our favor now.

We're designed to neutralize

Our damage is nothing to sneeze at, but rogues have traditionally filled a control-based role in PvP. We're designed with plenty of moves to neutralize both physical classes and casters. We have Crippling Poison and Dismantle to prevent warriors from crushing our friends, and Mind-numbing Poison and Gouge let us keep casters locked down. We've got stuns and slows, LoS breakers and CC, mobility and flexibility.

Players don't like it when control is taken away from them. Blizzard has often commented on the current state of CC in PvP, and how effective and rampant it's become. Rogues are the CC masters, which makes us public enemy number one. While I love pulling off crazy CC combos with Sap and Blind and Gouge, it's not fun for the players on the receiving end. Players have an easier time dealing with massive incoming damage than being locked out of their character.

We're rubber, they're glue

It's pretty hard to pummel a rogue. We've got a wide arsenal of defensive cooldowns at our disposal, like Cloak of Shadows, Evasion, Feint, Cheat Death, and Vanish. Even when our opponents get an opening to unload a salvo, we can typically deflect or mitigate much of the incoming damage. If you want to kill a rogue, you have to fight your way through all of our cooldowns, twice! During those few seconds when our enemies can act, we're negating their attacks with ease.

If WoW was entirely PvE-based, I think rogues would be more respected and welcomed. Healers love that we take less damage than any other class, tanks and DPS count on Tricks of the Trade, and we've got useful abilities and utility that contribute to our groups' success. We're very rarely a liability, and our damage is traditionally top-shelf.

All of the negative energy towards rogues comes from PvP. Fighting a rogue is frustrating, difficult, and often futile. We're labeled as dishonorable, cheaters, and sociopaths. It's not our fault that the class is based around surprise, control, and cooldowns. We're just working with what we're given. If we walk into an encounter out of Stealth and just faceroll into our opponents, we get crushed. But every time we push Kidney Shot or Vanish, we're building up just a little bit more ill will with our opponents. Sneak in every Wednesday for our patch 5.2 guide, a deep-dive into the world of assassination and combat rogue AoE rotations -- and of course, all the basics in our guide to a raid-ready rogue. Tags: assassination-rogue-encrypted-text, blind, cloak-of-shadows, combat-rogue-encrypted-text, featured, gouge, guide-to-rogues, rogue-animosity, rogue-assassination-encrypted-text, rogue-combat-encrypted-text, rogue-guide, rogue-info, rogue-pvp, rogue-subtlety-encrypted-text, rogue-talents, rogues-bad-guys, rogues-hated, subtlety-rogue-encrypted-text, tricks-of-the-trade, wow-rogue, wow-rogue-info, wow-rogues

Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

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Lei Shen will always drop Titan Runestones

WoW Insider posted yesterday about one PvE loot-related hotfix that didn't make the main list for the most recent server restart, and now we have another to inform you of. Blizzard Community Manager Rygarius posted the following over on the official forums: RygariusHello there.

We agree and feel that Titan Runestones drop too rarely. We are going to make some changes to Lei Shen.

For players that are on the legendary quest line, Lei Shen will now always drop a Titan Runestone. This is similar to what we did with rare drops in the past and will help players that have been experiencing really bad luck.

This change is still undergoing testing and is scheduled to take effect next Tuesday with the raid resets.

Keep in mind that this Titan Runestone 100% drop chance is in addition to the drop chance from all the other bosses, so it's not simply a case of farming Lei Shen for the number of Runestones you need. You could get lucky!

What's not clear is whether Lei Shen will drop one in both LFR and normal/heroic raids, so whether players could guarantee two Runestones a week by killing him on both difficulties. It seems relatively likely that that might be the case, but that's no guarantee.

Tags: breaking, drop-rate, legendary-quest, lei-shen, runestones, titan-runestones, wrathion, Wrathion-legendary

Filed under: Raiding

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